So I've wanted to make this thread for a while now but I haven't been too active here on TG, now I can finally make it lol
So I've been wondering what the future will be like regarding therianthropy. My first question is will people still call themselves therians or alterhumans? Will the label just die out and be forgotten? Or will therianthropy be well known in the future? I think that therians will eventually be well known and people will know who we are, but there is always a chance that people could simply forget therians and nobody would call themselves alterhumans. Although, I do think that people will always still experience therianthropy, whether they have labels to describe it or not.
My second thought revolves around what is, in my opinion, the most harmful thing to the therian community: tiktok 'therians'. The drama going on over there is wild, people are even saying that the therian community is 'falling apart', and.. no its not.. The people who say that have clearly only ever interacted with tiktok therians. But anyways, that's besides the point. I'm pretty sure every person on tikok has a different definition of therianthropy. The main ones being: quadrobics and gear, connections, and past lives. My fear is that tiktok 'therians' will change the definition of therianthropy and in the future it will have a completely new meaning. I really hope this doesn't happen but only time will tell.
On a side note, I really hope that these therian forums don't get forgotten. I'm only really active here on TG, but I really don't want this site to be gone in the future. Therian Guide makes me feel welcomed and at home, and I don't want people to forget about it - but hopefully that won't happen!
So what do you think will happen to therianthropy and therians in the future?
Thanks for listening to my rant!
Unfortunately, the future of the Therian community looks bleak to me. Disinformation is spreading, few people have the time and desire to "retrain" everyone and everyone who has fallen under this influence. As an example, I like to cite transgenderness, which has become just a kind of fashion, I rarely meet those who experience real gender dysphoria.
The Therian community is alive because it maintains its closedness, but for how long.
Therefore, my pessimistic forecast is as follows: in about 10 years, therianthropy will become the same "fashion", real theri will remain in closed chats and forums.
I've been in the therian community for 25 years and it's always been this way.
There were always groups of people that tried to make therianthropy more inclusive, because they benefited from popularity (think drama queens or youtube or tiktok) and this had negative consequences because we got a lot of people who only wanted in on the trend, but were not really therians.
But there's also always been real therians in the community, who really understand therianthropy as we do, who were relieved to find the community, and find some understanding of what they were experiencing, and needed the help of the community.
Like I've said many times, it feels like it's been an uphill battle, but we need to continue to make the community available and accessible to those people who are really therians, because they're out there, they always will be out there, and they need our help.
I do not think, making therianthropy more inclusive, by joining it into otherkin or copinglink or alterhuman or identity politics or paraphilia umbrellas, is helpful. I think all of those groups are valid but they're their own thing and therianthropy is just different. All we do by trying to merge into other, bigger communities is dilute our community with people who do not really understand therianthropy.
So in other words, I think it's important that at least we still call it "therianthropy" (or "being a were" if you want).
LP,
Dusty
(2023-08-15 9:12)DustWolf Wrote: [ -> ]I do not think, making therianthropy more inclusive, by joining it into otherkin or copinglink or alterhuman or identity politics or paraphilia umbrellas, is helpful. I think all of those groups are valid but they're their own thing and therianthropy is just different. All we do by trying to merge into other, bigger communities is dilute our community with people who do not really understand therianthropy.
This might be the single best reason I've ever read on why therianthropy should NOT be grouped under the otherkin umbrella term. Because joining them together dilutes each group as an individual community. 
(2023-08-15 9:12)DustWolf Wrote: [ -> ]I've been in the therian community for 25 years and it's always been this way.
There were always groups of people that tried to make therianthropy more inclusive, because they benefited from popularity (think drama queens or youtube or tiktok) and this had negative consequences because we got a lot of people who only wanted in on the trend, but were not really therians.
But there's also always been real therians in the community, who really understand therianthropy as we do, who were relieved to find the community, and find some understanding of what they were experiencing, and needed the help of the community.
Like I've said many times, it feels like it's been an uphill battle, but we need to continue to make the community available and accessible to those people who are really therians, because they're out there, they always will be out there, and they need our help.
I do not think, making therianthropy more inclusive, by joining it into otherkin or copinglink or alterhuman or identity politics or paraphilia umbrellas, is helpful. I think all of those groups are valid but they're their own thing and therianthropy is just different. All we do by trying to merge into other, bigger communities is dilute our community with people who do not really understand therianthropy.
So in other words, I think it's important that at least we still call it "therianthropy" (or "being a were" if you want).
LP,
Dusty
I absolutely agree with this! I see lots of people grouping together therianthropy with unrelated identities and in my opinion it is unnecessary and kind of disregards our separate experiences since therianthropy is its own thing, if that makes any sense. On a kind of side note, this is bit more aimed at the 'tikok therians' but as well as therianthropy being put under the otherkin/alterhuman umbrella it is grouped with quadrobics, furries and even sometimes roleplay. Which is of course super harmful to real therians and doesn't make sense. 
(2023-08-13 22:22)EvergreenLion Wrote: [ -> ]So I've wanted to make this thread for a while now but I haven't been too active here on TG, now I can finally make it lol
So I've been wondering what the future will be like regarding therianthropy. My first question is will people still call themselves therians or alterhumans? Will the label just die out and be forgotten? Or will therianthropy be well known in the future? I think that therians will eventually be well known and people will know who we are, but there is always a chance that people could simply forget therians and nobody would call themselves alterhumans. Although, I do think that people will always still experience therianthropy, whether they have labels to describe it or not.
My second thought revolves around what is, in my opinion, the most harmful thing to the therian community: tiktok 'therians'. The drama going on over there is wild, people are even saying that the therian community is 'falling apart', and.. no its not.. The people who say that have clearly only ever interacted with tiktok therians. But anyways, that's besides the point. I'm pretty sure every person on tikok has a different definition of therianthropy. The main ones being: quadrobics and gear, connections, and past lives. My fear is that tiktok 'therians' will change the definition of therianthropy and in the future it will have a completely new meaning. I really hope this doesn't happen but only time will tell.
On a side note, I really hope that these therian forums don't get forgotten. I'm only really active here on TG, but I really don't want this site to be gone in the future. Therian Guide makes me feel welcomed and at home, and I don't want people to forget about it - but hopefully that won't happen!
So what do you think will happen to therianthropy and therians in the future?
Thanks for listening to my rant!
I dont see the future very bright as for the popular social media. The misinformation and assumptions people make about some tiktok video is painful to watch. It is also one of the reasons i uninstalled tiktok. People on reddit have also been asking if you have to do quadrobics to be a therian so i believe more than half of this community is now on tiktok spreading misinformation.
It's something that has been troubling me for the past monnths as I dont think its good to expose theriantrophy to the outside world yet. People also dont do research about many animals other than canines or felines nowadays.. but that is understandable since there is many species to choose from but their starting point is always a cat or a wolf + saying their theriotype has a name which is unlikely for a wild animal.
Imo this is the only trustworthy website when it comes to connecting to people like us and i like that tiktok doesn't know about it yet.
I apologise if all of this sounded a bit harsh but spreading misinformation, setting up new rules etc. is the main reason why theriantrophy is misunderstood by social media.
not even gonna lie, i think the therian community is being overrun by kids on tiktok and people who generally..don't understand therianthropy at all. like don't get me wrong, i love autumn J, but therianthropy is just an aesthetic to most people online nowadays... sucks, because i awakened in '22.
I feel like "The future of therianthropy" could go two ways. The first being it's taken up by mostly small kids who think it's just about acting like an animal and people who confuse furry and therian. So basically, an entirely misinformed community.
The second is it could stay as it is- pretty well known, but still the bulk of the community are therians who actually understand therianthropy
I do think we will have a time period where the TikTok misconceptions become too much, however I'm pretty sure it will be like every other 'trend' and will eventually be forgotten by TikTok. I think the real therians will stick around.
I really don't know what the so-called 'future' holds for therians/otherkin/etc but as was mentioned before that there will always be those who treat issues like this as if it was a joke or some role-playing group at best.
I had been on a witchcraft forum years back and you always ran into people who treated the forum as if it was either a role playing hangout or a place for video games. There are always going to be the immature who treat anything outside of the general scheme as a place to act like the typical wannabe types who think that all you have to do is utter a few phrases or parrot what they have read in some cheap book in order to be the 'real thing' in their minds.
Anyways as with anything there needs to be a healthy dose of reality to keep the mind in check but as long as we have forums that aspire to something higher than 'My eyes glow when I'm angry' then we will be ok just like any other groups.